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For one of the most important arcade game creators ever, Taito gets surprisingly little respect. Here is the company that created Space Invaders, the only game ever reputed to have created a national coin shortage. Blame for this relative anonymity probably lies with its own games; after such a singularly spectacular start, Taito rarely recaptured that Space Invader glory. Instead, it just hung out in the background, pumping out '80s semi-classics like Rastan and Chase HQ and leaving other companies to score mega-hits like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Street Fighter II.

Treasure and Tripe

This lack of big-name successes is reflected well in the new Taito Legends. In fact, all but the most hardcore of arcade fans will find a few games on here that they've never heard of. While some of these obscurities are fun, Legends lacks a lots of the crucial classics that I'd really like to see, many of which were even featured in the two (unrelated) Taito Memories releases for the Japanese PS2.

Still, Legends manages at least a few big names among its 29 games. Bubble Bobble is first in line, and does a fine job of showing why it's still the definitive single-screen platformer after almost 20 years. Rastan also swings by, though it's not quite as fun and well-crafted as it seemed in 1987. Jungle Hunt provides a nice counterpoint to the Atari 2600 version everyone's familiar with, and Rainbow Islands shows up to remind us just how weird the early Bubble Bobble sequels were. (No Parasol Stars, however.) Going further back there's also Elevator Action, Zoo Keeper (fun!), Phoenix, and several flavors of Space Invaders.

There are a few nice discoveries to be made among the obscurities, too. Colony 7 is an ancient but well-done Atlantis clone (okay, so Colony 7 came out first). Continental Circus is a surprisingly involved sprite-based racer, which seems way too hard. Exzisus looks terribly primitive for 1987, but proves to be a rather fun shooter. The side-scrolling run-'n-gun / shooter hybrid Thunder Fox is pretty interesting too.

As diverting as these games can be, the omission of some huge titles is hard to overlook. This is especially noticeable since the release of the Taito Memories games, which include good to great titles like Darius Gaiden, G-Darius, Cadash, RayStorm, Elevator Action Returns, Genkirenden and Puzzle Bobble. I'd gladly have given up ancient mediocrities like Tokio and Great Swordsman and garbage like the newly cursor-driven light gun games (ugh) for a few of those.